Reviews: Movie

The Post-Modern Life of My Aunt

Directed by Ann Hui, starring Siqin Gaowa, Chow Yun-fat (pictured)

This is stereotyping of the funniest kind. Ethnic Mongolian actress Siqin Gaowa, the closest China has to Meryl Streep, plays a retired Shanghai teacher of English, whose British accent fails to get her a part-time job coaching kids who dream of going to America.

Into her world swirl a Norma Desmond-like neighbor, who desperately wants to relive her former glory (a symbol of the city, I suppose), a grandson who is in tune with the latest trends, a daughter who curses her for abandoning her family when she got the first chance to leave the impoverished Northeast, a migrant worker who resorts to extreme means to make ends meet, and above all, a middle-aged man whose charm and vocal dexterity in singing female Peking Opera roles brings down her guard and brings her endless regret.

The characters are so colorful and well-drawn, and incorporate so much information about current society, including negative stereotypes, that one would laugh and laugh and, between laughter, reflect on our way of life. Actually, Chow Yun-fat does not get it right as a Shanghai male gold-digger, but I quibble.

Raymond Zhou

(China Daily 03/29/2007 page20)